Becoming Parents To Your Parents

August 14, 2017

BECOMING PARENTS TO YOUR PARENTS

More and more, perhaps it is because I have reached my 60's... My friends and myself have found ourselves being the "Parents to Our Parents". It is a role that I thought I had completed, but forgot to take into account that my husband, Craig still had living parents, when we married 9 years ago. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining about it...just saying that both of my parents have been gone for a very long time, and I was not expecting to find myself in this position of spending Sunday afternoons and Saturday nights in a hospital room being an advocate for my husband's father! It definitely makes one aware of the mortality of life and how very important it is to be PRO-ACTIVE rather than RE-ACTIVE about taking care of yourself. This is a man who grew up eating meat, potatoes, desserts, fried foods, comfort foods, drank ice tea and coffee and not much water. This is a man who has had cardiovascular "incidents" for 40+ years (he is now 90 years old), he has had open heart surgery, stents--multiple of them, developed Type 2 Diabetes--years ago...and was taught that he could manage his blood sugar levels by adjusting his insulin... His quality of life has been confined to a Jazzy (motorized wheelchair) for at least 8 years.... In the past 5 months, he has been in the hospital or rehab more than he has been at home. He does pretty well while he is in controlled facility environments, but then, goes home--schedules are no longer adhered to, food is not controlled and the cycle repeats... There is no discipline/restriction of foods, no water drinking and ....here we are again..... Sigh.... Moral of the Story: Drink water! Stay away from boxes, bags and cans! Do not drink/eat things with sugar every day. Keep those for "special" treats... keep a great attitude! So YOUR children have more to look forward to than the experience that we find ourselves experiencing!